Chinese farmers have taken over formerly white-owned farms for the first time, investing millions of pounds into tobacco production.

Farms that were badly managed for nearly 20 years, after Robert Mugabe’s mass seizure of white-owned land, are now being worked again in the hope of reaping a potentially huge reward.

At least five farms have attracted Chinese investment in Mashonaland Central, a region to the north-west of Harare, that was traditionally one of the country’s best tobacco-producing areas.

JEKESAI NJIKIZANA/AFP/Getty ImagesThis picture taken on February 19, 2014 shows an auctioneer pointing to the opening price of US4.85 per kilogramme of the "golden leaf" at the annual Zimbabwe tobacco market that officially opened in Harare at the Tobacco Sales Floors.

Safe in the knowledge that Mugabe’s policy of strengthening ties with China will offer a degree of protection, they have poured money into machinery and are taking advice from international experts.

China has become the largest investor in Zimbabwe, whose economy, still reeling from the land seizures of 2000 and hyperinflation, has taken a nosedive once again. Unemployment is running at about 90 per cent and the regime is so short of money that it cannot pay teachers or civil servants.

The dire economic conditions have prompted rare protests against Mugabe’s regime by a coalition of opposition parties.

On Saturday, a heavy police presence in Zimbabwe’s capital Harare stopped a planned mass demonstration, as activists claimed police used live ammunition to disperse small protests.

While Zimbabwe’s land reform process has has empowered around 60,000 small-scale black tobacco farmers, who grow lower grades of tobacco, many of the bigger farms distributed among Mugabe’s cronies have not fared so well.

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Farms just north of Harare lie fallow amid broken fences, fields scorched by fires and scarce livestock. There are few surviving indigenous trees as many were felled by new farmers who could not afford coal to cure their tobacco.

A generation of evicted white farmers have moved abroad or live hand-to-mouth, waiting for promised compensation.

One farm worker in Mvurwi, about 60 miles north of Harare, said there were now plenty of jobs in the district after years of difficulties following the departure of the white landowners. “The Chinese are spending money,” he said.

AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe eats cake during his 92nd birthday celebrations in Masvingo about 300 kilometres south of Harare, on Saturday, Feb, 27, 2016.

Experts believe that the five Chinese-run farms will, despite their limited experience, grow and cure about 1,500 acres of tobacco this year. They said the new infrastructure including equipment manufactured by US company, Valley Irrigation, must have cost at least CAD$12 million

An insider in the tobacco industry said the Chinese company would be paying a hefty rental for the land they are now using to the “political” men who now own the farms.

“The Chinese will pay a percentage of the income from the tobacco as rent,” he said. “Some of that rental should be shared with the white farmers who left their homes with nothing and received no compensation from the government, but they probably don’t know their old farms are now about to start making money again.”

Robert Mugabe is 92 years old and can’t last forever. The world’s oldest head of state, he has been president of the poor, benighted country of Zimbabwe for 36 calamitous years and has made abundantly clear he plans to remain in office until death decides otherwise.

In recent years there have been regular reports that his health had given way and the country would finally be freed from the yoke of his brutal and despotic rule. No such luck. In February he announced, to no one’s surprise, that he intends to seek a new five-year term in 2018. He would stand down, he said, “when God says come.”

There have been times throughout his reign that hinted Zimbabweans might not wait for God, and could take matters into their own hands. On each occasion Mugabe has responded with ruthless force. Thousands died — no one is really sure of the exact total — when government forces attacked rivals in Matabeleland in the 1980s. Elections — still held for the sake of appearances — are commonly accompanied by bloody crackdowns. When opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai dared attend a banned prayer meeting in 2007, he was beaten by men with crowbars and carted off to court in the back of a truck.

WILFRED KAJESE/AFP/Getty ImagesPolice used water cannons to break up protests in Harare.

Now signs are again evident of Zimbabweans’ simmering rage. Public protests have been held, organized by the country’s gaggle of opposition groups. Last week police used tear gas and water cannons against demonstrators demanding Mugabe resign. In July protests organized by a 39-year-old pastor succeeded in shutting down banks, schools and offices.

Odds are their efforts will get no further than those before them. Mugabe has vowed “severe” punishment for all challengers. As usual, he claims opponents are pawns manipulated by foreign powers, especially the U.S. and Britain. “They are thinking that what happened in the Arab Spring is going to happen in this country,” he said of recent protests. “We tell them that is not going to happen here.”

Nonetheless there are reasons this upsurge of anger might be different. Mugabe’s power rests firmly in his status as a hero of the war that ended repressive white rule. Veterans of that war are national heroes. But reports indicate the loyalty of security forces may be fraying, the victim of missed paycheques and endemic corruption. Mugabe flew into a rage in July when a veterans group, usually among his most stalwart of supporters, turned against him, citing the “systematic entrenchment of dictatorial tendencies, personified by the president and his cohorts.” War veterans who were granted valuable farms seized from whites are seeing the land seized again, and handed to more loyal cronies of Mugabe and his imperious wife, Grace.

(AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)Mugabe, the world's oldest head of state, has pledged to improve conditions for the military

Grace Mugabe is one of several rivals already engaged in a fierce struggle to succeed her husband. Her chief opponents is Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, known as “Crocodile” for his own exploits during the liberation war. Lately Grace has been hinting that Mnangagwa is plotting against her husband, the same tactic she used to oust former vice president Joice Mujuru two years ago. Mujuru recently formed her own party, Zimbabwe People First, vowing to rid the country of corruption, though she continues to live on a farm whose seizure from its white owners was ruled illegal by Zimbabwe’s top court.

Behind the discontent is the decrepit state of Zimbabwe’s economy. After years of spiraling inflation and empty shop shelves, the local currency was shelved in 2009 in favour of the U.S. dollar and several other currencies. But the government ran out of its supply of cash this year and began printing a new currency in May, sparking fears the new “zombie money” will mark a return to financial chaos.

(AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

The situation is so dire the government has been reduced to seeking loans from the western powers it regularly excoriates. Unemployment remains chronic and almost impossible to track, with the vast majority of the population scraping out a living in informal jobs. The road to prosperity still depends on unquestioning loyalty to the ruling party, with senior party members living lavish lives amid the national squalor. This year, claiming a need to halt smuggling, the government announced it would take control of the country’s entire diamond industry, among the few viable money-makers still in operation.

The hopelessness facing young Zimbabweans may be one of the greatest threats to the regime: more than two-thirds of Zimbabweans aren’t old enough to remember the liberation war. They know little of the struggle against white rule and see only the decrepit, dysfunctional country produced by Mugabe’s cutthroat rule. To them, Mugabe is the “old man” who should have long since let loose his grip on power.

Unfortunately, the old man has plenty of experience in putting down previous uprisings, and nothing to lose from another round of repression. When Mugabe does finally depart the scene, there’s little to suggest his death will produce a brighter future for his country.

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Police in Zimbabwe’s capital on Monday fired tear gas, water cannons and warning shots during riots by minibus drivers and others protesting alleged police harassment. The violence, in which 30 people were arrested, came amid a surge in protests in recent weeks because of increasing economic hardship and alleged mismanagement by the government of President Robert Mugabe.

An Associated Press journalist saw protesters severely beat two police officers with sticks, then take their uniforms and helmets and wear them.

The riots come before a planned strike Tuesday by state hospital doctors and other government workers who said they will protest the government’s failure to pay their June salaries on time.

Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi / Associated Press PhotoThe rioting in Harare came amid a surge in protests in recent weeks because of economic hardships and alleged mismanagement by the government of President Robert Mugabe

The protesters blocked roads leading into the centre of Harare, forcing many people to walk up to 10 kilometres to get to work. Rioters threw stones at police and vehicles, and some children on their way to school were caught up in the chaos.

Outnumbered police later sought to negotiate with the crowds after failing to disperse thousands of protesters, who were concentrated in Harare’s eastern suburbs. Many rioters were young men who can’t find regular employment and make a living off drivers by charging a small fee to load passengers into minibuses.

Some police were seen firing live ammunition into the air to ward off the crowds. They also brought in police dogs.

The drivers’ grievances stem from anger over numerous roadblocks that police sometimes set up in city streets, which drivers allege are to demand bribes. Police said they had reduced the number of roadblocks after complaints from parliamentarians, tourism operators and others.

Thirty people were arrested for inciting the protests, police spokeswoman Charity Charamba said.

“We have information and intelligence on the identities of some criminal elements who are behind the social unrest,” Charamba said at a news conference.

Such acts of defiance and clashes with the police are rare in Zimbabwe, although the government deployed the army against 1998 riots over soaring food prices. Mugabe, 92, has ruled the southern African country since independence from white minority rule in 1980, scoffing at frequent allegations of human rights violations.

Frustrations over rapidly deteriorating economic conditions in Zimbabwe, compounded by dissatisfaction over alleged government corruption and incompetence, have resulted in near-daily protests in recent weeks. On Friday, protesters burned a warehouse at Beitbridge, a busy border post between Zimbabwe and South Africa, over a Zimbabwean decision to ban a wide range of imports.

Seventeen people appeared in court on Sunday over the Beitbridge protests and were charged with public violence.

Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa has been pleading with Western countries to unlock financing for Zimbabwe in the form of loans that were halted close to two decades ago. The financing dried up due to failure to repay debts as well as international sanctions imposed because of concerns over democratic rights.

Some recent political protests have been notable for their brazenness. Police said they are looking for Lumumba William Matumanje, a former ruling party activist who used an obscenity to denigrate Mugabe while launching his own political party last week. People have often been sent to jail for such conduct in Zimbabwe.

Last month, video footage showed an anti-government protester shouting in the lobby of an upscale hotel in Harare and haranguing police until they move in and drag him away. The video shows a protest by activists angry at Vice-President Phelekezela Mphoko’s alleged 18-month stay in a $400-a-night hotel suite in the capital, Harare.

Activist Sten Zvorwadza was charged with threats to commit malicious damage to property and was freed on $200 bail.

The majority of Zimbabwe’s citizens survive on just a dollar a day, the official statistics agency says.

Illicit trade in Zimbabwean diamonds cost the economy more than $13 billion, forcing the state to create a new company that’s taken control of the country’s deposits, President Robert Mugabe said.

The government on Feb. 22 ordered all diamond-mining companies to end operations and vacate their premises in the Marange and Chimanimani areas and announced the Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Co. will take over mining.

The state has earned about $2 billion from the gems as about $15 billion was generated by the industry, Mugabe said Thursday on state television in the capital, Harare. He didn’t provide a timeframe.

“Lots of smuggling and swindling has taken place and the companies that have been mining, I want to say robbed us of our wealth,” Mugabe said. “That is why we decided that this area should be a monopoly area and only the state should be able to do the mining in that area.”

Mining is the biggest source of foreign exchange for Zimbabwe, which has the world’s largest platinum reserves after South Africa and also has chrome, gold and iron ore. Production of diamonds in the nation fell to 420,000 carats in the first five months of 2015 from 660,000 carats a year earlier.

Diamonds prices are at six-year lows after slumping 18 percent in 2015, the most since the 2008 global financial crisis, according to data from WWW International Diamond Consultants. Demand in China, the biggest market after the U.S., has shrunk along with a slowing economy and a crackdown on corruption that’s discouraged open displays of wealth.

The creation of the state-owned diamond company followed a refusal by Anjin Investments Ltd., the Diamond Mining Co., Jinan Mining Ltd., Kusena Diamonds, Marange Resources Ltd. and Mbada Diamonds to accept the nationalization of their assets, Mines Minister Walter Chidakwa said last month.

“You cannot trust a private company in that area,” Mugabe said. “We should have learnt from the experiences of countries like Botswana, Angola, Namibia. We might go partner with a leading diamond company, one already well-established.”

New York-based Human Rights Watch said in 2009 that more than 200 illegal workers were killed in Marange as they were being driven off the site by the military. Some were shot from a helicopter, the group said, citing an unidentified eyewitness. The government denied allegations of any human-rights abuses.

MASVINGO — The lavish annual birthday parties for President Robert G. Mugabe of Zimbabwe, who has been in power since the country gained independence in 1980, have been a stage from which he has swatted away challengers and secured his larger-than-life hold on his nation.

“Mugabe’s birthday,” a state-run newspaper proclaimed this month, “is like that of Jesus Christ.”

But when Mugabe — the world’s oldest head of state — celebrated his 92nd birthday here over the weekend, his advancing age and visible frailty focused attention on the increasingly fierce struggle within his party to succeed him.

The jockeying for power was too much for Mugabe to ignore.

Blaming “senior party members” motivated by “their own evil interests” — as well as the British and the Americans for sowing divisions within his party — Mugabe said: “Factionalism, factionalism and, I repeat, factionalism has no space. It has no place at all in our party.”

AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, left, watches as his wife Grace cut one of his birthday cakes, during celebrations for his 92nd birthday, in Masvingo about 300 kilometres south of Harare, Saturday, Feb, 27, 2016.

The president’s admonition, his second in two weeks, is unlikely to extinguish the feuding inside Zimbabwe’s governing elite. It raises the possibility that, as in other African nations led for decades by a single leader, the struggle for succession here could be long and painful for Zimbabwe — as well as for its neighbors, like South Africa, which has already received hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans fleeing political and economic turmoil.

Mugabe, who said this month that he would govern “until God says ‘come,’ ” has already announced his intention to run for re-election in 2018. But he has been unable to suppress images of his mortality.

In recent months, video footage captured by television cameras and cellphones has shown Mugabe stumbling or sleeping at public events. He has appeared confused and in one instance even repeated in its entirety a speech he had already read.

The images have reinforced the atmosphere in Zimbabwe that an era is coming to an end.

AFP / JEKESAI NJIKIZANAJ A picture shows Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's birthday cake in the shape of the map of Africa during celebrations marking his birthday at the Great Zimbabwe monument in Masvingo on February 27, 2016.

Mugabe’s birthday party, which has been held since 1986 and was broadcast live on television, took place this year at the Great Zimbabwe, a historic site here about 200 miles southeast of Harare, the capital. Tens of thousands of party members were bused here, most wearing party regalia emblazoned with the president’s face.

Children paraded in military fatigues and chanted anti-Western slogans, praising Mugabe as the conqueror of the British.

In a region hit hard by a drought that has ravaged swaths of southern Africa, Mugabe released 92 balloons into the air to start the festivities and later cut a cake weighing about 203 pounds.

Zimbabwe recently declared a “state of disaster” in drought-stricken rural areas and said that a quarter of the population may lack food in the months ahead because of poor harvests.

AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi Members of a band perform during celebrations to mark Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's 92nd birthday.

The main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, described the party as “obscene,” and Zimbabwe’s news media reported that it cost $800,000. Even some partygoers who said they had come for the food — 50 cattle were slaughtered — were critical.

“It is amazing that a president presiding over a state which fails to pay its workers on time, a country with a sea of poverty and going through one of the worst droughts in living memory and hunger, can see it fit to spend a million dollars celebrating his life, which has meant nothing but suffering for us,” said Caleb Moyo, 34, a bus driver who described himself as a former local organizer now disillusioned with the president.

On the stage, however, loyalists extolled Mugabe.

“We see Mugabe as Africa’s Moses and towering icon,” said Pupurai Togarepi, the youth leader of the governing party, ZANU-PF. “That is why we celebrate in this way.”

But Togarepi, as well as a provincial party leader, acknowledged the party’s open fissures in Mugabe’s presence, and apologized for them.

In the weeks leading up to the party, tensions rose between the two groups fighting to control ZANU-PF, known popularly as Team Lacoste and G40. The factions — each led by officials with long ties to Mugabe and with little difference in ideology — have traded increasingly vitriolic attacks in public.

AFP / JEKESAI NJIKIZANA Could Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, 92, be next for an admiring word from the Prime Minister?

Team Lacoste is allied with one of Mugabe’s two vice presidents, Emmerson Mnangagwa, whose nickname is the Crocodile. A veteran of ZANU-PF, Mnangagwa has led the ministries of defense and justice, and is believed to enjoy strong backing among the security forces. His allies have been increasingly vocal in pressing for the president’s retirement to make way for Mnangagwa.

Grace Mugabe, the president’s wife, who has the support of the G40, pointedly attacked Mnangagwa and his allies at a party rally a few weeks ago, accusing them of trying to topple Mugabe.

Grace Mugabe, 50, a former secretary to the president who became his second wife in 1996, has become politically active in the last couple of years.

Supported by some senior party members, she is believed to have engineered in 2014 the firing of Joice Mujuru, who served as one of Mugabe’s vice presidents for 10 years and was considered a leading contender to succeed him.

In turn, Grace Mugabe and her allies have drawn rising anger from Zimbabwe’s war veterans, who have long mobilized support for Mugabe. The war veterans say that Grace Mugabe and her backers are opportunists who wield influence only because of their proximity to the president and do not have popular support.

On Feb. 18, the police fired tear gas and water cannons to break up a planned march by war veterans on the party’s headquarters in the capital. At the party here, many members were openly hostile toward the G40.

AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, left, prepares to delivers his speech, with his wife Grace at right, during celebrations to mark his 92nd birthday.

“The danger of allowing Mugabe’s wife to lead a faction which takes over from Mugabe is that we will end up in a civil war situation,” said Gilbert Kurangwa, 67, a war veteran. “She is only as powerful as Mugabe is around, and when the old man is gone even those supporting her will turn against Grace.”

Perhaps because the attacks were loud enough, Mugabe defended his wife from the stage here.

“It is shameful the way Mrs. Mugabe is being criticized,” Mugabe said. “Who may be the enemy among us?”

1. No smoking, unless it’s pot

Larry Wong / Postmedia NewsUniversity of Alberta student Kelly West holds some movie DVDs she says should be rated R due to smoking and tobacco imagery.

The anti-tobacco movement is pushing to make smoking illegal as it tries to force healthy habits on the last stubborn smokers who refuse to quit despite being constantly lectured about it. At the same time Liberal Ottawa is moving heaven and earth to legalize pot. Could Canada become the world’s first country to ban smoking, unless it’s pot?

2. Canada at the big-boy table

AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, File

I think I just figured out why the Liberals love the UN so much: as they reduce Canada’s place at the top tables of international affairs, it’s the one place they can guarantee to still be treated like big players. Even the lowliest piles of dreck (we’re talking you, Bob Mugabe) get the same level of diplomatic fawning at the UN. So Canada can be certain of being treated like a big-boy country even as the adults continue to hold meetings they don’t tell us about.)

3. News from Syria: Russia is winning

GHAITH OMRAN / AFP / Getty ImagesPeople gather around the rubble of a hospital supported by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) near Maaret al-Numan in Syria on Monday.

The Syrian situation is getting worse, hard as that is to imagine. Putin is winning big time. Assad will probably get to stay in power over whatever is left, the refugees will never go home, the Kurds will want independence, we’re all going to have to admit at some point this is a lost cause… Putin is winning for the simple fact that he wants it more than we do.

4. Public servants at the trough, St. John’s chapter

Paulo Whitaker / Reuters files

Public servants at the trough: 29 St. John’s city staff who took an offer of early retirement will get up to $535,000 to stop working before they switch over to their pensions. Of the 29, only one comes in under $100,000, the CBC says. Of course, the city defends this, saying they would have had to be paid anyway, because of “when you look at the detail probably over half of that could be annual leave, sick leave and severance, says Councillor Art Puddister. Art, isn’t that precisely the problem: people like you OK contracts that give people living off the public purse fat deals no other Canadians could dream of. Because working for the taxpayer somehow makes them special.

5. Had enough yet, Ontario?

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris YoungFormer Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and his successor Kathleen Wynne.

I’m throwing this in just for fun: Bob Hepburn at The Starthinks the Whitby by-election disaster shows Ontarians are finally getting fed up with Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals, who are “facing the real threat of being trounced in the next provincial election in 2018. Indeed, the Progressive Conservatives under new leader Patrick Brown may easily wind up forming a majority government.” Geoffrey Stevens at the Waterloo Record (which the Star owns) also has his doubts.

Hoo-boy, when the Liberals lose The Star, they really know they’re in trouble.

HARARE, Zimbabwe — The hilltop has a commanding view of Harare, features a huge bronze statue of three guerrilla fighters and boasts black marble and granite flourishes. It is quiet and is Zimbabwe’s most exclusive neighbourhood.

Turnover is zero: Once there, those who move in never leave. But now, people are complaining that President Robert Mugabe is making Heroes Acre too exclusive.

Internment at Heroes Acre cemetery, which opened more than three decades ago, is supposed to be only for those who made huge sacrifices during the war against white-minority rule and who dedicated themselves to the nation of Zimbabwe that emerged from the ashes of Rhodesia.

Also, you had to belong to ZANU-PF, the party headed by Mugabe that has ruled since independence in 1980, the critics note sourly. Those who broke with him? Their remains rest elsewhere.

Two critics this month approached the country’s highest court, challenging the 91-year-old’s monopoly in determining the importance of dead heroes.

Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi / Associated PressA woman takes time to read names of fallen heroes at the National Heroes Acre in Harare.

The issue is significant in this southern African country, not least because those selected as national heroes get to be buried with full military honours and state assistance at the National Heroes Acre, which covers 57 acres and has a 40-meter (44-yard)-high tower which is visible from much of the capital.

“We have come to accept that this is a ZANU-PF cemetery, but the use of state funds to pay for such a partisan shrine is criminal,” Luke Tamborinyoka, spokesman for the MDC-T, the main opposition party, told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “If it is a private cemetery then it should be funded privately.”

In papers filed with the constitutional Court, Tinomudaishe Chinyoka and Alex Musundire note the absence in Heroes Acre of Ndabaningi Sithole, who was the founding president of the ruling party in 1963 but was removed before the end of the war, with Mugabe eventually taking over the leadership. They also cite Sir Garfield Todd, a former colonial prime minister who later became a fierce advocate of majority black rule and was once arrested by the minority white government for helping Mugabe and other nationalists. He later fell out with Mugabe for being outspoken about alleged misrule after independence.

Mugabe, who turns 92 on Feb. 21, is assured of the prime spot at the North Korean-built shrine.

His late first wife Sally and one of his sisters, Sabina, are buried there. The remains of over 100 people, mainly those involved in the 1970s war, are buried before black marble tombstones, arrayed in a pattern said to resemble — when seen from above — ammunition magazines for AK-47 rifles.

Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi / Associated PressThe grave of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe's sister Sabina is seen at the Heroes Acre.

In court papers, Chinyoka, a lawyer and former student leader, and Musundire, an MDC-T official, alleged that Mugabe’s discretion on who gets in and who is barred from Heroes Acre is not “always lawful, efficient, prompt, reasonable, proportionate, impartial and both substantively and procedurally fair.”

They accuse Mugabe of favouritism, citing the burial of his sister, as an example.

“Sabina Mugabe … is not chronicled in any government or other publication that I am aware of with having done anything of note,” Chinyoka said.

During an address at the shrine to mark Heroes Day last year, Mugabe slapped down the critics.

“The misguided elements whom we share Zimbabwe with have absurd, weird and wayward opinions on who should be declared a hero. Let me make it abundantly clear that these sacred shrines are solely for our heroes who sacrificed their lives for the liberation of this country,” Mugabe said.

The court has not yet set a hearing date for the complaint filed by Chinyoka and Musundire.

1. Unifor asks Mulcair to clam up about Saudis

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Galit RodanUnifor President Jerry Dias.

Unifor, Canada’s biggest private-sector union, is asking Thomas Mulcair to go easy on criticism of the $15-billion deal to supply armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia, because, um, there’s lots of jobs at stake. Seems all those huffy salvoes about Stephen Harper and respect for rights don’t apply if the money’s big enough. “We asked the NDP to not make this an issue, that it be kept under wraps. There are a lot of issues out there to be talking about,” Fergo Berto, Unifor area director for London, adding that union president Jerry Dias spoke to Mulcair after the debate last week.

2. Alberta reverses big payday for legislative workers

ED KAISER / EDMONTON JOURNALMLA Denise Woollard, chairwoman of a legislative committee that decided last week to give pay raises to some legislative officers, has announced that the decision was reversed.

Alberta’s NDP government just learned a big lesson. Last week it approved a 7.25% pay raise for legislative workers, even as the private sector slashes jobs and unemployment rises. Did they think no one would notice? Um, wrong-o. On Tuesday the same committee reversed its decision and voted for a freeze. “We made a mistake. We’ve admitted to it and we’re going to try to fix it and move on,” said Denise Woollard, head of the committee on legislative offices. The vote to change their mind was unanimous.

3. Notley caught in fuss over Mulcair emissions plan

Ryan Jackson/Postmedia News filesGreenhouse gas emissions from energy-rich Alberta amounted to 267 megatonnes in 2013, with the federal government projecting that amount to grow to 287 megatonnes by 2020. The increased carbon levy is expected to reduce emissions by an additional five megatonnes.

Thomas Mulcair has put Rachel Notley in a bit of a bind. Mulcair favours a cap-and-trade system on emissions control. The Alberta premier kind of pooh-poohed that this week, suggesting she might go in another direction (i.e. carbon tax). That got Mulcair bad headlines: “NDP premier disses NDP proposal.” So Notley issued a statement saying she “strongly supports” Mulcair’s plan and declaring it would work for Alberta. Now she’s being accused of caving to pressure from Ottawa, and has to deny it. “It’s not in any way a change,” she says. But how can she strongly support a plan while indicating she might not adopt it? Heads are being scratched.

4. Canada has more seniors than 15-year-olds

Frank Gunn / Canadian PressStatistics Canada says the country's population now features more seniors than children.

Canada gets old: for the first time ever, there are more senior citizens than people under 15. We knew it was coming, but have we done anything about it? Statscan says one in every six people in Canada is over age 65 — 5.8 million out of a population of almost 36 million. And the growth rate of seniors is four times that of the population at large. Of course the parties are falling over themselves to ensure they get the special treatment they’ve been used to all their lives, because boomers must not be ignored.

5. Canada tops G7 in immigration numbers

Matthew Sherwood for National PostImmigrants hold Canadian flags and their certificates of citizenship during a Canadian citizenship ceremony.

On the same topic, the figures make accusations that the Tories are anti-immigration look pretty lame. Canada’s population grew by more than 300,000 last year, the fastest growth of any G-7 nation, and 60% of it was from immigration. Because CANADA HAS ALWAYS DONE MORE! Right Justin?

6. 91-year-old Robert Mugabe isn’t gay. Now you know

REUTERS / Philimon BulawayoRobert Mugabe

Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe distinguishes himself in his turn at the microphone at the UN General Assembly, shouting “We are not gays!” after complaining about “attempts to prescribe new rights that are contrary to our values, norms, traditions and beliefs.” Mugabe is 91. I don’t think he needs to worry.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/immigration-numbers-boom-amid-debate-on-anti-immigration-other-reasons-to-fear-for-humanity/feed0stdA Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer raises his hand as a group of 60 people take the oath of citizenship during a special Canada Day citizenship ceremony in Vancouver, B.C., on Sunday July 1, 2012.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Galit RodanED KAISER / EDMONTON JOURNALRyan Jackson/Postmedia News filesFrank Gunn / Canadian PressMatthew Sherwood for National PostREUTERS / Philimon Bulawayo‘If you rape, what must go?’ Zimbabwe ‘seriously’ considering castrating pedophiles, Mugabe sayshttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/zimbabwe-seriously-considering-castrating-pedophiles
Wed, 16 Sep 2015 22:01:59 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=888898

Zimbabwe is considering castrating pedophiles, President Robert Mugabe said.

“You don’t take that which is not yours. The Muslims say Sharia Law if you steal, your hand must go,” Mugabe told lawmakers at a hotel in the capital, Harare. “Now if you rape, what must go? You may make it a laughing matter but its being considered seriously.”

Mugabe, 91, has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980.

“We are thinking about it very seriously and don’t say Mr. Mugabe has become brutal. I want to protect our children. Men, take care,” he said.

1. Ethicist warns against sex with robots

(AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)

A British “robot ethicist” has started a campaign opposing the development of robots for sex. “Sex robots seem to be a growing focus in the robotics industry and the models that they draw on – how they will look, what roles they would play – are very disturbing indeed,” Dr. Kathleen Richardson told the BBC. “We think that the creation of such robots will contribute to detrimental relationships between men and women, adults and children, men and men and women and women.” Apparently a company called “True Companion” says it will have “the world’s first sex robot” ready to launch by the end of the year.

2. NDP to explain its budget calculations

Thomas Mulcair is scheduled to explain today how the NDP will pay for its promises and balance the budget to the same time. He may not be wearing shoes, as this should take both hands and all 10 toes. A few targeted leaks have already revealed some of the details: Bloomberg says the rise in corporate taxes would be capped at 17.5%, and there will be no change to capital gains taxes. Also, Mulcair reportedly intends to roll out the new programs gradually rather than whack the budget with a wave of new spending all at once.

Nonetheless, if you add the Mulcair corporate hike to the Notley corporate hike in Alberta, it tacks an extra 4.5% on to Alberta companies as they try to deal with collapsed oil prices, job losses and a slowing economy. Not great timing.

3. Putin denies speaking with Elton John

SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/Getty Images Elton John

On Tuesday, Elton John thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for “reaching out” to talk with him by phone about gay rights and said he looks forward to their face-to-face meeting. Only problem is that Putin’s people say it never happened. “I don’t know who spoke to Elton John but President Putin did not speak to him,” said spokesman Dmitry Peskov (the man with the $600,000 watch). “President Putin did not speak to Elton John and most importantly we didn’t receive any proposals to meet.”

Australia’s new prime minister is already in trouble after a Labour MP complained he hadn’t answered her question and instead was guilty of “mansplaining”. Unfortunately, hardly anyone knew what that meant and somebody had to look it up. It means: “to explain (something) to a woman, in a way that is patronizing because it assumes that a woman will be ignorant of the subject matter”. Get that, ladies?

5. Mugabe reads the wrong speech

AP Photo/Tsvangirayi MukwazhiZimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, and his wife Grace in 2013.

Zimbabwe’s 91-year-old president for life Robert Mugabe opened Parliament Tuesday by accentually reading the wrong speech. The 25-minute speech was one he had already delivered in August. Though members of parliament quickly noticed, and the state broadcaster cut the live feed, Mugabe apparently didn’t catch on and kept on reading, and party MPs clapped at all the right places just like they were expected to. But now everyone has to go back today for a “special session” so Mugabe can read the right speech.

6. Charlie Hebdo runs Alan Kurdi cartoon

Charlie Hebdo has published two cartoons featuring the drowned refugee child Aylan Kurdi, one featuring a McDonald’s ad offering a promotional 2-for-1 kids meal deal and the logo: “so close….”, the other depicting Jesus walking on water and the text: “Christians walk on water, Muslims drown”.

These just in

An Air Canada pilot diverted a flight from Tel Aviv to Toronto, landing in Frankfurt after a heating system in the cargo area failed, because he knew there was a dog in the cargo that might freeze to death. It added $10,000 to fuel costs and delayed the flight, but no one is complaining.

Kathleen Wynne says, despite the fact she really, really prefers Justin Trudeau, she’d work with whoever wins the election because that’s her job as Ontario premier. But really, you know, she mostly likes Justin.

Johannesburg — Robert Mugabe’s wife has “staked her claim” to power by presenting herself as a wise adviser to Zimbabwe’s vice-presidents while the faculties of her 91-year-old husband decline.

Grace Mugabe, 49, said she is working closely with the president’s two deputies, adding that both “take notes” while listening to her views on “developmental issues”.

Her words were interpreted as a bid for power after the death or retirement of her husband.

Opening a housing scheme, Grace Mugabe told thousands of people that she was holding regular meetings with the two vice-presidents, Phelekezela Mphoko and Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Both men are at least 20 years her senior and Mnangagwa has served in the cabinet since independence from Britain in 1980.

AP Photo/Tsvangirayi MukwazhiZimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, and his wife Grace in 2013.

Mugabe still said that both regularly benefited from her wisdom.

“In the few months they have been in power, I have lost count of the times that I have sat down with them one-on-one to talk about the development of Zimbabwe,” she said. “This is the leadership that we want – servant leaders who know that they are there to work for the people and that they should sit down with the mother to discuss issues.”

Referring to herself as “Amai” or “Mother”, Mugabe added that the vice-presidents “know that they must sit down with Amai to discuss developmental issues.

“Mnangagwa comes with a notebook, Mphoko comes with a notebook to listen to me. They know I am younger than them, but they appreciate that I am Amai – and I have something to tell them about developing the nation.”

Mugabe presented herself as a schoolteacher instructing the two vice-presidents. “They will be jotting down notes as I speak so that the nation moves forward,” she said.

Observers said that Mugabe appears to be positioning herself for the moment when her husband leaves politics. Ibbo Mandaza, formerly a senior official in the ruling Zanu-PF party and now a political commentator, said: “She has staked her claim.”

Mugabe, a deeply unpopular figure with a reputation for enjoying a luxury lifestyle, began an affair with the president while working as a typist at State House in the 1990s. She delivered their first child – a daughter, Bona – when his first wife, Sally, was still alive. She married Mugabe in 1996 and became a member of the Zanu-PF Politburo last year.

Robert Mugabe’s mental decay is increasingly obvious, making the question of his succession more urgent.

A Western diplomat in Harare said: “I have watched this closely and he is deteriorating mentally. No question about that. It was quite sudden from when I saw him a few months ago.”

Another said: “He can’t stay awake these days. He often nodded off in cabinet in the last few years, but now it is very difficult for him to stay awake for long.”

Brian Raftopoulos, a political commentator, said that Mrs Mugabe was “certainly more influential”, adding: “She is now very important and state power is also about jobs, as the private sector means very little. So people will cling to government jobs as it is the only means of accumulation.”

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/grace-mugabe-49-positions-herself-to-take-power-in-zimbabwe-as-frail-91-year-old-husband-fades/feed0std-AP Photo/Tsvangirayi MukwazhiMugabe family didn’t use state funds to buy a $7.6 million Hong Kong villa — it was just ‘borrowing it’http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/mugabe-family-didnt-use-state-funds-to-buy-a-7-6m-hong-kong-villa-they-were-just-borrowing-it-they-say
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/mugabe-family-didnt-use-state-funds-to-buy-a-7-6m-hong-kong-villa-they-were-just-borrowing-it-they-say#respondMon, 25 May 2015 16:46:43 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=780061

The cash-strapped Zimbabwean government is to fight a potentially embarrassing legal case in Hong Kong over a $7.6 million luxury villa said to be one of the favourite properties of the first lady, Grace Mugabe.

The house has already proved controversial, after Bona Mugabe, the daughter of Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, and his wife was found to be living there while studying in Hong Kong.

Asked how they could afford the expensive property in the New Territories, the Mugabes claimed it belonged to the Zimbabwean government and their daughter had been “borrowing it.” Mugabe has subsequently claimed the original purchase of the flat was part of a “secret government project.”

However, that has now been challenged by a businessman who used to be one of the Mugabes’ closest friends and advisers, who claims the house has always belonged to him.

Hsieh Ping Sung, a Taiwanese-born South African citizen now known as Jack Ping, claims he bought it before leasing it to the Zimbabwean government.

Expensive lawyers from Hong Kong and South Africa have been hired for the dispute, which is due to go to mediation this week.

In a case likely to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, the Zimbabwean government claims it is the true owner of the property, but has failed so far to provide a receipt. It says it paid cash as it was a “secret project.”

The case threatens to shed light on the long relationship between Ping and Mrs. Mugabe. They were jointly connected to a number of failed platinum and gold-mining ventures in Zimbabwe several years ago, according to documents in the country’s mines ministry.

Ping also introduced Mugabe to medical specialists in Malaysia and Singapore who have conducted prostate and eye surgery on him several times. Mugabe continues to visit Singapore for medical check-ups every few months.

At the height of the family friendship eight years ago, Ping financed the construction of about two dozen cottages for Mrs Mugabe on land she took from white farmers about 15 miles west of Harare, and which formed the basis of her orphanage.

Ping also advised the Mugabes on sending their daughter to study in Hong Kong. She fled the house after it was burgled and never returned. After that, it was occupied by Zimbabwe’s consul to Hong Kong, but Ping says he received only one month’s rent and the 1,200sq ft property is now believed to be empty.

The Johannesburg solicitor Mannie Witz is representing Ping and will fly to Hong Kong for the mediation, due to begin on Friday, delayed from today at the Zimbabwean government’s request.

The government first claimed the flat at Christmas in 2013. After many postponements, a mutually agreed mediator was set to hear argument today.

“Zimbabwe now even wants a further delay to that date,” Witz said. “So I am going to see what can be done to bring an end to this.”

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/mugabe-family-didnt-use-state-funds-to-buy-a-7-6m-hong-kong-villa-they-were-just-borrowing-it-they-say/feed0stdZIMBABWE-POLITICS-MUGABE-ZANUMugabe marks 91st birthday with supporters saying they will back him for full term until 2018http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/mugabe-marks-91st-birthday-with-supporters-saying-they-will-back-him-for-full-term-until-2018
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HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe turns 91 on Saturday, with his supporters saying they will back him to run his full term until 2018 and beyond despite nagging questions about his health and an economy that is crumbling under his watch.

Mugabe’s recent fall at Harare Airport fuelled renewed speculation that old age is catching up with the man who has led Zimbabwe since independence in 1980. The spry Mugabe, however, succeeded in breaking his fall and apparently was not injured. His officials say he is in good health.

In addition to being in power in Zimbabwe, this year Mugabe is also chairman of the 54-nation African Union and the 15-nation Southern African Development Community.

Low key events marked Saturday’s birthday but lavish celebrations are planned next Saturday (Feb. 28) in the resort town of Victoria Falls. Those celebrations will be held by the 21st February Movement, the group that has planned Mugabe’s birthday celebrations since 1986. Members of Mugabe’s ruling paty, ZANU-PF, say they are raising more than $1 million for the festivities.

The celebrations are leaving a sour taste in the mouth for some Zimbabweans battling to survive under economic deterioration that has led to company closures, massive unemployment and successive food shortages.

Zimbabwe’s once prosperous economy took a severe knock in 2000 when Mugabe began seizing white-owned farms. Allegations of vote-rigging and violence in elections that year brought the United States and the European Union to impose travel and financial sanctions on Mugabe, his inner circle and some state institutions and firms.

An empowerment law forcing foreigners to sell at least 51 percent of their shareholding to government-approved black Zimbabweans has scared investors, said economist John Robertson. Mugabe’s “Look East” policy encouraging Chinese investment has failed to stabilize the economy, he said.

“The celebrations show what has gone wrong in this country. Only those close to Mugabe feast while the rest of us starve. Look around, everyone is now a vendor,” said John Ratambwa, an unemployed 23-year old Harare resident. “At 91 one has to rest. Ninety-one years is too old an age to lead a vast country like Zimbabwe,” he said in downtown Harare, whose sidewalks now teem with people selling wares.

The African Development Bank says 65 percent of Zimbabweans now rely on the informal sector for survival due to the decline in industry. Mugabe’s government in the past year has struggled to pay its workers.

Mugabe won disputed elections in 2013 and his supporters say they want him to contest the 2018 elections at 94.

Nelson Chamisa, an opposition legislator, said Mugabe should hand over the baton. “I would equate what ZANU-PF is doing to abuse of the elderly,” he said. “He needs to rest. Even our constitution stipulates that we have an oblation to take care of our elderly. Look at what happened at the airport, a very embarrassing situation.”

Mugabe’s wife Grace, 42 years his junior, has recently become prominent in Zimbabwe’s politics. At this week’s ZANU-PF politburo meeting she sat next to Mugabe in the seat previously taken by ousted vice president Joice Mujuru. Grace Mugabe is secretary for women’s affairs in the politburo.

Didymus Mutasa, who worked with Mugabe since the 1960s until he was fired from his presidential ministerial position last year and from the party this week for allegedly plotting to oust Mugabe, said Grace is now the power behind the throne.

“Grace has effectively taken over,” he said. “Power now revolves around her and this is sad because she is inexperienced and will cause more damage.”

Supa Mandiwanzira, the minister for Information and Communications Technology, said Mugabe is still in charge.

“I sit in cabinet every Tuesday with the president, he is totally, fully in charge,” he said, dismissing criticism of Mugabe’s birthday festivities.

“The celebrations are worth every cent. This is an icon we are talking about,” said Mandiwanzira. “He is pushing for the empowerment of blacks through the land reform program and the indigenization policy.”

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe’s government said President Robert Mugabe, 90, did not fall down the steps from a podium, saying that he “managed to break the fall.”

Information Minister Jonathan Moyo on Thursday cited examples of leaders who have stumbled, from Jesus to George W. Bush, in an attempt to deny Mugabe fell down the stairs at Harare airport Wednesday.

“Nobody has shown any evidence of the president having fallen down because that did not happen,” Moyo told the state-owned Herald newspaper.

“What happened is that the president tripped over a hump on the carpet on one of the steps of the dais as he was stepping down from the platform but he remarkably managed to break the fall on his own. I repeat that the president managed to break the fall.”

“And to be honest with you,” he added later, “even Jesus, let alone you, would have also tripped in that kind of situation.”

“In the circumstances, there’s really nothing to write home about the nonsensical celebrations by malcontents who are imagining a fall that never was since it was actually broken by the president himself,” Moyo said.

Witnesses, who insisted on anonymity because of security concerns, said they saw Mugabe topple when he left the raised lectern at the airport on Wednesday. Press photographers said they were forced to delete images of Mugabe’s fall, but photos and video footage obtained by The Associated Press show the president falling and landing on his hands and knees.

His aides quickly helped him up and escorted him to his limousine which sped away.

The Associated PressMugabe after the tumble.

The Herald newspaper also published a collage of other world leaders who have stumbled, and listed incidents in which Former U.S. Presidents George W. Bush and Gerald Ford, Australia’s Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Queen Sofia of Spain all tripped.

Mugabe, who turns 91 on Feb. 21, was addressing supporters after returning from Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, where he was appointed chairman of the 54-nation African Union.

The Zimbabwean leader has repeatedly insisted that he is “fit as two fiddles.” Mugabe takes annual vacations every January to Asia, including Singapore where he has visited specialists for checkups on his eyes, according to Zimbabwean officials.

Mugabe has been in power since Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980.

The Associated PressMugabe " he remarkably managed to break the fall on his own," a spokesman said.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/robert-mugabe-zimbabwes-dictator-for-life-tries-to-destroy-images-that-shows-him-falling-over-at-harare-airport/feed3galleryZimbabwean President Robert Mugabe falls after addressing supporters upon his return from an African Union meeting in Ethiopia Wednesday.The Associated PressThe Associated PressState-run newspaper accuses Zimbabwe’s VP of plot to assassinate President Robert Mugabehttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/state-run-newspaper-accuses-zimbabwes-vp-of-plot-to-assassinate-president-robert-mugabe
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The deputy president of Zimbabwe has been linked to a plot to assassinate Robert Mugabe, according to a report in a state-run newspaper.

Joice Mujuru, 59, the vice-president and one of two frontrunners to succeed the 90-year-old president, was “at the centre” of the plan led by two of her allies in the party, according to The Sunday Mail, which is widely seen as a mouthpiece for Mr. Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party.

The newspaper cited legal experts calling for police to investigate the allegations, and analysts saying that the revelations made Ms. Mujuru’s continued senior position in the party “untenable.”

AP Photo/Tsvangirayi MukwazhiA copy of The Sunday Mail newspaper is held in Harare, Sunday, Nov. 16, 2014, showing the story of the Vice President being linked to a presidential assassination plot.

The assassination allegation is widely seen as another salvo in the battle for the party’s vice-presidential position ahead of next month’s elective congress. The vice-president will succeed Mr. Mugabe when he dies or retires, but only for 90 days.

In recent months Mr. Mugabe’s wife, Grace, has been campaigning in the provinces for high political office, claiming that she is a presidential contender.

She has accused Ms. Mujuru, believed to be the West’s preferred Mugabe replacement, of being a thief, and of plotting a coup against her husband.

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AP Photo/Tsvangirayi MukwazhiZimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, left, and his wife Grace, at the launch of his party's election campaign in Harare, Friday, July, 5, 2013.

At present, Ms. Mugabe is backed by Emmerson Mnangagwa, 72. But he too has been seen as Ms. Mujuru’s greatest rival to the presidency and some analysts say that if Mr. Mugabe died or retired, his support for Ms. Mugabe would cease.

The allegations follow the suspension of many of Ms. Mujuru’s key supporters within Zanu-PF at a meeting of the party’s all-powerful politburo last week.

Votes of no confidence were also passed against half of Zanu-PF’s provincial chairmen, most of them known Mujuru supporters.

Ibbo Mandaza, a Zimbabwean analyst who was a senior member of Zanu-PF until six years ago, said Ms. Mujuru is now a “lame duck” vice-president.

If you want an idea of the remarkable nature of Nelson Mandela and his accomplishments in South Africa, one of the easiest ways is to compare his country to the decrepit backwater that exists just across its northern border in Zimbabwe.

At one time the two were similar: both were run by a white minority that brutalized the black majority and institutionalized official racism as the basis of the nation. The government was run by whites, the military was run by whites, the wealth belonged to whites and every important position in the private or public sector was held by whites. Blacks were allowed to serve as servants, labourers or clergymen, but not much else.

Both countries underwent violent revolts by the black majority, Rhodesia’s peaking a decade or so before South Africa’s. In the end the majority prevailed, though the result has been starkly different.

Zimbabwe under the savage rule of Robert Mugabe has crumbled into one of the world’s most despotic, chaotic, hideous kleptocracies on the planet. The country exists for the benefit of one man — Mugabe — and those cronies ruthless enough to join in the mass corruption that masquerades as a government.

FileNelson Mandela and Robert Mugabe chat during the Word Economic Forum in Cape Town in 1994.

When majority rule came to Zimbabwe it was a prosperous place, with a relatively small population and an abundance of agricultural and mineral resources. Now its economy is almost totally dysfunctional, state-sponsored violence is endemic, the majority of the population struggles along on subsistence levels while the country’s “leadership” spends its time looting resources and plotting who will succeed Mugabe, who will be 90 in February and has run the country since 1980, happily murdering opponents along the way.

South Africa is not a perfect place, but its history since Mandela was released from prison and elected to the presidency has contrasted with Zimbabwe’s in almost every way. Mugabe set out to punish whites for their years of oppression; Mandela conspicuously offered reconciliation. Mugabe seized power for himself and used defence forces as a private army to crush opponents; South Africa continues to be ruled by Mandela’s African National Congress, but holds regular free elections in which a series of successors have been fairly chosen and peacefully installed.

Most whites have fled Zimbabwe. Many blacks are desperate to follow them, and have swarmed across the border to South Africa and Botswana to escape Zimbabwe’s chaos. In Zimbabwe, open dissent is not tolerated; Mugabe’s leading opponent was beaten to a pulp some years ago when he tried to attend a prayer meeting. South Africa retains a vigorous press that doesn’t hesitate to state its views.

South Africa is not a perfect place, but its history since Mandela was released from prison has contrasted with Zimbabwe’s in almost every way.

There are plenty of problems in South Africa. Crime and violence are constant issues. Graft is worsening. The Mail & Guardian, a Johannesburg newspaper, reported last week that President Jacob Zuma had been ordered to repay $20 million for “security improvements” to his rural estate that included a swimming pool, an amphitheater, cattle enclosures and houses for relatives. The corruption is troubling, but in Zimbabwe there would have been no “graft ombudsman” to write the report, nor newspaper allowed to reveal it.

Aaron Lynett / National Post Toronto Transit Commission Chair Karen Stintz (second from left) speaks with a group of city councillors ahead of a special meeting of council to determine the future of transit in Toronto, Wednesday morning, February 8, 2012

Although blacks have taken over many of the levers of power, the gap between rich and poor remains vast, with well-off blacks having joined a remaining block of wealthy whites to enjoy a disproportionate share of the national wealth. A telling moment occurred last year when 34 striking miners were shot to death by police, an event that eerily recalled similar incidents by whites against blacks under apartheid, but this time was by powerful blacks against poor blacks. The result has produced a violent struggle for control of the mining union and open challenges to the ANC, which is seen by many as having fallen prey to the temptations of office.

It’s a dangerous situation and one the current government seems ill-suited to deal with. Mr. Zuma is a bit of a cartoon character, with four wives and 20 children, who serves the interests of the ruling elite by eagerly joining the hunt for riches. But, again, the situation contrasts with South Africa’s unhappy neighbour in that South Africa still has the institutions intact to identify and publicize the situation, and enough faith in the security of its rights to use them.

That is all part of Mandela’s legacy. Unlike Zimbabwe or any number of other African disaster cases — Nigeria being another — it always has his example to hold up against the grubbing activities of his successors, and the belief in the right to fight against them. His death won’t eliminate that, which is another demonstration of his astonishing achievements.

National Post

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/kelly-mcparland-mandelas-achievements-live-in-contrast-to-south-africas-neighbours/feed0stdNelson MandelaFileSouth Africans hold pictures of Nelson Mandela as they pay tribute following his death in Johannesburg on December 6, 2013.Bradley Crawford: Mugabe's legacyhttp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/bradley-crawford-mugabes-legacy
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/bradley-crawford-mugabes-legacy#respondMon, 09 Sep 2013 04:01:17 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=127879

After winning another disputed Zimbabwean election last July, 89-year-old Robert Mugabe was sworn in this month to serve his seventh consecutive term as president. Though many had hoped the tyrant’s 33-year reign would end, others still see promise in the man.

In August, Britain’s The Guardian ran an article titled “Why a Robert Mugabe victory would be good for Zimbabwe” by British filmmaker Roy Agyemang. Agyemang, who spent three years in the country filming his documentary Mugabe: Villain or Hero? can barely contain his admiration for Mugabe, whom he refers to as a “dying breed” of African politician, “the surviving face of African nationalism”.

Mugabe is definitely a member of a dying breed: President-for-Life African tyrants. Over his decades-long rule, Mugabe has never pretended to represent all of his citizens. To Mugabe, “Zimbabwean” refers to the majority Shona people. Minority Ndebele are lesser Zimbabweans, and the few native whites are foreigners. He is, and always has been, in it for his own interests, or at best, the interests of his own ethnic group.

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Mugabe came to power after the small white minority, which ruled the country at the time, declared independence from Britain in 1965. Zimbabwae’s majority black population rose up under two rival rebel political parties and their respective militias. After 15 years of fighting, a peace agreement was reached that included elections. Mugabe and his Zimbabwean African National Union party won power at the ballot box, taking office in 1980.

At the time, Mugabe could indeed claim to be a freedom fighter and African nationalist hero like Nelson Mandela. He had spent close to a decade incarcerated between 1965 and 1974, using the time to gain higher education. But the comparisons to Mandela end there. Mugabe’s legacy is more in tune with that of Idi Amin, the illiterate and malicious buffoon that terrorized Uganda from 1971-1979. Like Amin, Mugabe’s style of governance is one that is fixated on violence towards all political opposition.

Christopher Polk/Getty Images

Not long after taking office in 1980, Mugabe ruthlessly cracked down on his political rivals. He banned their rallies, intimidated and murdered their supporters, and closed their offices. Mugabe then signed a deal with North Korea’s Kim Il Sung to have North Korean officers train an elite unit of soldiers, drawn mostly from Shona recruits loyal to Mugabe. In 1981, an all-out campaign to suppress all opposition to Mugabe began, and these troops were at the vanguard.

Known as the 5th Brigade, the unit’s first directive was to occupy Zimbabwe’s Matabeleland, the homeland of the Ndebele people and centre of support for ZAPU, the main political rival to Mugabe’s party. After occupying and segregating Matabeleland from 1982-1986, the brigade proceeded to carry out beatings, torture, and executions. The unit left 20,000 Ndebele dead in its wake in an attempt to neutralize all ZAPU support and opposition. It was not until 1987 that international pressure produced a unity agreement between Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, the ZAPU leader. ZAPU was integrated into Mugabe’s party, and Mugabe himself retained all his power. The violence in Matabeleland remains a dark stain on Mugabe’s record.

As does his treatment of white Zimbabweans as foreigners responsible for the nation’s suffering. Throughout his entire presidency, Mugabe has employed contentious land reform policies whereby private white-owned farms have been nationalized and redistributed to the black majority as small commercial properties. These are often converted to subsistence farms. Land reform was integral to the pursuit of racial equality and development in Zimbabwe — Mugabe and his supporters were not wrong to note that only a tiny percentage of (white) Zimbabweans owned almost all the productive land. The manner in which land reform was undertaken, however, was typical Mugabe, steeped in violence and corruption.

REUTERS/KyodoA limousine carrying a portrait of late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il leads his funeral procession in Pyongyang in this photo taken by Kyodo December 28, 2011.

Many of the farms seized from white owners have been given directly to individuals in Mugabe’s inner circle. The tradition of a privileged land owning minority continues unabated — the owners have changed, but the reality for most landless Zimbabweans has not. Most of those who have land bestowed on them know nothing about agriculture, which remains at the centre of Zimbabwe’s economy. Many of the farms seized have been taken violently. Thousands of Zimbabweans, who were employed on the farms, have been subjected to this violence and deliberate terror campaigns, for the crime of simply working there. The white owners have largely fled, but the black workers remain at the mercy of Mugabe’s thugs. Thousands have perished.

The result of this has been the ruination of what was once called the “Breadbasket of Africa”. “[Mugabe] and his cronies have managed single-handedly to destroy one of the most promising countries in Africa,” wrote Dr. John Laband, a professor of African history. The collapse of the country’s agricultural sector lies at the heart of this undoing.

Mugabe epitomizes colonialism’s violence, subjugation and indignity

After 33 years, Mugabe’s legacy is this: rampant abuses of human rights, the elimination of all political opposition, the organized slaughter in Matabeleland, the exile of the white minority, the persecution, murder and dispossession of an estimated 400,000 black Zimbabwean farm workers, a massive and continuing exodus of refugees, and the destruction of Zimbabwe’s economy, which has left countless Zimbabweans starving, unemployed, impoverished or buried.

Indeed, Mugabe has become exactly what he hates so fervently and claims to have spent his life fighting against. He is not a symbol of African nationalism and unity who has returned the dignity that colonialism stole. Rather, he epitomizes colonialism’s violence, subjugation and indignity.

If Zimbabwe should miraculously become a peaceful nation with rapid economic growth during Mugabe’s final years it would never forgive his 33 years of violence, sectarianism and economic mismanagement. That anyone would consider his re-election a good thing for Zimbabwe shows only how little they understand its recent, bloody history and the man responsible for it.

National Post

Bradley Crawford is a freelance writer who holds a Master’s degree in Global History with a specialization in African conflict and development from the University of Guelph. He blogs about current affairs at http://thotkrime.wordpress.com/

Other than “Crisis in the Middle East,” is there a more predictable headline than this from the Los Angeles Times?: “Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe re-elected; opponents cry foul.”

Mugabe, who is 89 and has run his country for 33 years, was never going to allow a free and fair election. He wouldn’t have remained in power this long if it were otherwise. Zimbabwe under Mugabe is one long tale of a promising country tumbling into ruination. The economy is a train wreck, corruption is endemic, poverty is everywhere, unemployment is estimated at more than 90%, and advancement is all but impossible unless you are a supporter — or better yet a leader — of Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party.

John Baird’s official reaction to the election fraud was blandness itself.

So why is anyone surprised that the latest election would be a fraud? In the past, Mugabe maintained his position through the generous application of violence. If he had to murder, arrest or torture opponents to prevent them gaining a foothold on power, so be it. In 2008, when it appeared the opposition Movement for Democratic Change might be making progress anyway, Human Rights Watch reported that Zanu-PF set up “torture camps” to ” systematically target, beat, and torture people” suspected of supporting the MDC. When Mugabe came second to MDC’s Morgan Tsvangirai, he set up a phony coalition with himself in charge and went on ruling as he always had. Unwilling to embrace violence, Tsvangirai has never been a match for Mugabe’s unbridled cold-bloodedness. Mugabe’s solution to an unsightly shantytown that had grown up in the capital, and where support for the opposition was strong, was to bulldoze it.

Nonetheless, the response to last week’s election was the usual outpouring of diplomatic disapproval.

“We are rejecting these results because the election was fraudulent,” declared Tsvangirai.

Australia wants a re-run. William Hague, Britain’s foreign secretary, said he had “grave concerns” and demanded fraud allegations be investigated.

“The irregularities in the lead up to the elections and on election day itself, reported by the observer missions and in contravention of SADC’s guidelines, call into serious question the credibility of the election,” he said.

John Kerry, the U.S. secretary of state, said the process was deeply flawed and did not represent the will of citizens.

“In light of substantial electoral irregularities reported by domestic and regional observers, the United States does not believe that the results announced represent a credible expression of the will of the Zimbabwean people.”

“Canada has serious concerns about the reported irregularities and lack of transparency in the democratic process, which call into question whether the results can credibly represent the will of the people.

“Canada does congratulate the people of Zimbabwe for participating peacefully in the first elections under their new constitution.

“It is our hope that the irregularities will be investigated and that new transparency mechanisms will be implemented to ensure the credibility of the election process.”

Well, ho and hum. Mr. Baird can get fired up about lots of things, but the strangulation of individual rights in Zimbabwe evidently isn’t one of them. Perhaps that simply reflects the reality: the West has tried all the usual pressure tactics outside of invasion: sanctions, isolation and embargoes; travel restrictions and financial curbs on Mugabe and his top henchmen; and a regular fusillade of disapproving lectures from more respectable statespeople. Other African leaders have been urged to deliver warnings and reason with Mugabe, all to no avail. Although a number of African media sites reported Mugabe had denounced Nelson Mandela as a “coward” and “idiot,” South African president Jacob Zuma shrugged off the fraud allegations and sent his “profound congratulations” to Mugabe.

Pascal Le Segretain/Getty ImagesSandra Bullock and George Clooney attend the opening ceremony and 'Gravity' premiere during the 70th Venice International Film Festival.

Mugabe isn’t likely to pay much heed to the denunciations. He dismisses the West as a pack of anti-African colonizers. He supports himself and his followers by siphoning off the proceeds from Zimbabwe’s lucrative diamond trade. The Sunday Times reported Mugabe used $850 million in diamond takings to rig the elections. An Israeli report suggests Zimbabwean diamond exports may quintuple over the next five years.

That’s more than enough to fuel Mugabe and his famously lavish-spending wife, Grace, through the end of his latest mandate, if he lives that long. Mugabe will be 90 in February. He is known to have health problems. Even diamonds and violence can’t keep him alive forever.

Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai called Wednesday’s presidential and parliamentary vote a “sham election” and said the results may threaten stability in the southern African nation.

“This election has been a huge farce,” he told reporters today in Harare, the capital. “The shoddy manner in which it was conducted and the consequent illegitimacy of the result will plunge this country into a serious crisis.”

Tsvangirai, who’s bidding to end President Robert Mugabe’s 33-year rule, said among his complaints were that thousands of people were turned away because they weren’t on electoral roll, voters were bussed to cast ballots outside their homes areas and the election process was controlled by the security forces.

Earlier, the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, which fielded 7,000 observers, called the vote “seriously compromised” because of a “systematic effort to disenfranchise” as many as 1 million urban voters, according to an emailed statement. Nationwide there were 6.4 million registered voters, according to the nation’s electoral commission.

The rejection of the vote by Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change followed a day of balloting and a campaign largely free of the violence that marred the last Mugabe- Tsvangirai contest in 2008. Tsvangirai led the first round of that election before he pulled out of a run-off saying about 200 of his supporters had been killed. The MDC defeated Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front in the parliamentary ballot.

“It’s pretty clear there was mass disenfranchisement, especially for people in the urban areas,” Piers Pigou, a researcher at the International Crisis Group, said today by phone from Johannesburg in neighboring South Africa. “Zanu-PF was very well organized and they resuscitated their patronage networks with great success.”

The electoral commission and the head of the African Union observer mission, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, said yesterday the vote was peaceful and “free and fair.”

The Zimbabwe monitor group called on the African Union and the Southern African Development Community observers to be “objective in their evaluation” of the vote.

“There’s a difference between an election being orderly and it being credible,” Pigou said. “The fact they’re making these statements backing the vote so early on raises eyebrows.”

The election was set to end a coalition government accord arranged in 2009 by the 15-nation SADC after the violence-ridden election the year before. The deal left Mugabe, who’s led Zimbabwe since independence from the U.K. in 1980, as president and named Tsvangirai prime minister.

Mugabe yesterday dismissed the claims as “politicking” in remarks to reporters after he voted.

AP PhotoVoters look at posted results outside a polling station in Harare Thursday.

The commission said on July 13 that it would announce results of the presidential vote by Aug. 5. The process took about a month in 2008. It hasn’t set a date for results from the parliamentary ballot to be released.

“In our view the election is null and void,” Tsvangirai said today. “It’s a sham election that does not reflect the will of the people.”

ALEXANDER JOE/AFP/Getty ImagesZimbabweans wait in line as they prepare to cast their ballots at a polling station in Domboshava Wednesday.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/zimbabwes-election-was-a-huge-farce-prime-minister-says-as-he-rejects-sham-vote/feed2galleryZimbabwe President Robert Mugabe casts his vote at a polling booth in a school in Harare on July 31, 2013AP Photo/Tsvangirayi MukwazhiAP Photo/Tsvangirayi MukwazhiAP PhotoALEXANDER JOE/AFP/Getty ImagesAP Photo/Tsvangirayi MukwazhiALEXANDER JOE/AFP/Getty ImagesALEXANDER JOE/AFP/Getty ImagesRobert Mugabe using intimidation and Photoshop to hang on to powerhttp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/robert-mugabe-using-intimidation-and-photoshop-to-hang-on-to-power
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/robert-mugabe-using-intimidation-and-photoshop-to-hang-on-to-power#respondFri, 26 Jul 2013 11:00:02 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=124172

Full Comment’s Araminta Wordsworth brings you a daily round-up of quality punditry from across the globe. Today: There’s an election to be stolen in Zimbabwe next Wednesday, and Robert Mugabe’s party goons are hard at work intimidating anyone minded to vote for the other side.

But it may be curtains for the aging leader and his Zimbabwean African National Unity-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and an opportunity for Prime Minister Morgan Tsvingirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change.

After the “flawed” 2008 elections, the South African Development Community will supervise the poll. It has forced a significant change in electoral rules – the five million Zimbabweans living outside the country have the right to cast ballots and they are unlikely to be Mugabe supporters.

Also age is finally catching up with the 89-year-old dictator. Party strategists are using retouched old photos of him on campaign posters out of concern his age has made him a liability.

As one commentator noted, being a tin-pot African dictator is better than anti-aging creams: “Ladies, ditch the Clinique and seize the reins of state power instead.”

Joking aside, the world’s oldest political leader cannot expect to hang on much longer — his pragmatic exit strategy has long been to be carried out, feet first. Nonetheless, Simon Allison at The Guardian’s African Network believes the Mugabe “machine” will deliver once again.

Tsvangirai maintains that he trusts that the people of Zimbabwe “will do the right thing”; and that he’s got God on his side. Mugabe, however, has got the army and the police on his side – and so far in Zimbabwe’s history, they’ve been more powerful. It is also important to remember that, even if all things were equal, Mugabe would be no electoral pushover. Opinion polls in recent months have repeatedly shown that Tsvangirai’s popularity has been hurt by divisions within the opposition and his own scandalous love-life, putting him and Mugabe neck-and-neck, with the wily president even edging in front on occasion.

This is all a long-winded way of saying that Mugabe is looking good to win these elections – and if he does have to cheat, he doesn’t have to cheat by all that much. This is hardly a revelation. We are talking about Zimbabwe, after all, and one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders.

An editorial in the South African Financial Mail accuses President Jacob Zuma of being an enabler, after Lindiwe Zulu, his foreign affairs advisor, earned Mugabe’s ire.

The sin committed by Zulu was, of course, to state the simple truth. In this case it was that there appeared to be problems with the early voting process … As it happens, the real issue is transparent. Because their own country has been made uninhabitable, a large number of Zimbabweans now live outside Zimbabwe. They are, not surprisingly, generally not ZANU-PF supporters.

Having been forced to allow these economic exiles the right to vote, Mugabe’s strategy has been to try to force the elections to happen as fast as possible to make it difficult for them to cast their ballots. The strategy would be cunning if it weren’t so transparent. But it’s entirely consistent with Mugabe’s modus operandi, which has been the chief reason he has been able to cling onto power.

The Daily Telegraph’s Aislinn Lang says Mugabe has been turning to another tried and tested election technique – using old photos.

Elias Mudzuri, an engineer and MDC MP, said there was little doubt ZANU-PF was engaging in a spot of retouching of its ageing figurehead. “In the posters I have seen, he’s about 70,” he said. “We Africans may respect our elders and value their wisdom but this country has been through an economic crisis and needs some fresh thinking.”

Dr. Ibbo Mandaza, a Harare-based political analyst, said Mr. Mugabe’s age represented a problem for ZANU-PF but he could not be persuaded to stand down. “It’s clear that his age is a liability and it was a major gamble to put him up for election again,” he said … Mr. Mugabe was more interested in remaining in power. “He wants to die in office and that’s the big concern for everyone because what would happen if he did?”

In March, a self-proclaimed disaffected insider of the ruling ZANU-PF party created the Facebook page of “Baba Jukwa.” With the disarming profile picture of a cartoon old man, Baba Jukwa traffics in political napalm, spilling damaging details of high-level party meetings, allegations of voter fraud, and embarrassing gossip – all replete with private phone numbers for citizens to harass the officials in question.
Most notably, Baba has warned ZANU-PF’s political targets when they enter the party’s crosshairs. Last month he declared that top officials were “planning to sink Edward Chindori Chininga and replace him with their puppet.” Chininga, an MP who had released a damning report on corruption in the country’s diamond mines, died nine days later in a suspicious car accident.